and we'll see you back here on march 12th. bye. >> goodbye, everyone. please mute yourself in you're not speaking. the first item on the agenda is roll-call. [roll-call]

>> clerk: we have a quorum. our next item is item 2, discussion and possible action regarding a proposed ordinance. board of spurp advicers 210030, amending the building cold through june 30th, 2023. require the department of building inspection to annually report on such waivers in addition to their requirements. >> good morning, commissioners.

[audio interference] for 80 projects on lots containing single-family homes. it does require the building department to submit a report, the type of fee waivers, also about the applicant of the property. what the applicant's individual business. that kind of thing. it will be retroactive january 1st of this year and expires june 30, 2023 or the first day

of the year for which the [audio interference] >> program, whichever comes first. it is accompanied by file 210031, which appropriates $165,000 from the general fund to cover the cost of the waiver for the current fiscal year. with that, it's just the ordinance in a nut shell. >> thank you. i'm the legislative aide working on this. i think john has covered the key points. the intent of the new ordinance is to support permit applicants in building dwelling units. those could be added to the housing stock. and contribute in terms of arena allocation for housing for the

units. and for residents, we are looking at broader housing options across the needs. that's including seniors with mobility issues and tenants looking for more affordable housing options. multiple generations under one roof and young adults who want to stay in the neighborhoods where they grew up. specifically, the ordinance does add language in section 107-a .15 of the building code. that has been amended previously with larger -- with a broader legislation that the mayor and cosponsored by supervisor mar has sponsored in the past in 2019. so in terms of the fiscal impact, we're looking at it being retroactive to january. and for this fiscal year, it would be $165,000. and we're extrapolating it from the 2019 pilot ordinance, taking

into account just the single-family homes that had a.d.u. permits. so that is what we're looking at for the companion appropriations ordinance to go with the fee waiver. and as john said, this would expire july 2023 or if there aren't the appropriations, you know, earlier. the reason for that is to maintain that right line between taxes and fees, so that the costs of the fees waived wouldn't be imposed or burdening another fee waiver. when this is expired, the city attorney would take this action out of the building code. are there any questions? >> thank you. thank you for your presentation.

john, your -- i don't know if all the commissioners got your presentation earlier. your speaker was bad there, the audio. commissioners, i'll open it up for questions to the commissioners. john, there were parts of your presentation there that didn't come through. so i'm not sure. >> i'm sorry. >> it's not your fault. vice chair moss, do you have questions? >> vice president moss: no. >> president mccarthy: commissioner alexander-tut, do you have questions? >> commissioner alexander-tut: yes. thank you for your presentation. is the fee waiver only for new permits or is this for any fees related to existing permits for a.d.u.s? >> this would be for new

construction. adus that are not legalized is separate. >> commissioner alexander-tut: any fees for existing permits for a.d.u.s or new permits for new a.d.u.s? >> i believe this is for new a.d.u.s, uh-huh. >> commissioner alexander-tut: thank you. >> president mccarthy: commissioner bito, welcome to the commission. do you have any questions, please? >> commissioner bito: not at this moment. >> president mccarthy: commissioner clinch? >> commissioner clinch: no. thanks. >> president mccarthy: commissioner jacobo. >> commissioner jacobo: no questions at this moment. >> president mccarthy: and commissioner tam, please. >> commissioner tam: yes, any blank canvas space, that is only

for that, not an existing space someone is trying to legalize and make an a.d.u., this would not qualify? >> yeah. there is separate legislation about a.d.u.s. this is new construction. >> president mccarthy: john, what are the savings for the new a.d.u.s people get? >> can you hear me? >> president mccarthy: yes. >> i've got my video off. hopefully that helps. under the previous pilot program, the average fees waived for a.d.u. permits were about $1,700 for permit. that was across the board. it's not an apples to apples

comparison. that's sort of about where we are. >> president mccarthy: so we're clear. these are waived? >> they're waived. >> president mccarthy: they're waived. >> they're waived. anybody that filed -- i don't think anybody that would have filed -- well, maybe some folks have gotten an issue if they filed after january 1st. they would be refunded. >> president mccarthy: that's actually, yeah. >> president mccarthy: if there are no further questions, my friends are i believe they help the bottom line for a lot of projects. anything that commissioner mar can bring to the table to help, i think it's great. and i thank his office for bringing this forward for his presentation this morning. and with that, then, i think if there's no more comments on this, we'll open it up to commissioners one more time.

okay. seeing none. can we vote on this, then? do we need -- >> clerk: we would call for public comment. >> president mccarthy: yeah. >> clerk: and there would need to be a motion. >> president mccarthy: motion to support, yeah. we'll come back and make the motion to support. open it up to public comment, madam secretary. >> clerk: we'll open to public comment. for the record, the public comment call in number is 415-655-0001. the access code is 1460874757. if anyone would like to speak for public comment, please press star 3 to raise your hand. any public comment for this item. >> sorry. i was muted. >> i'm not seeing hands raised. >> clerk: okay. >> from attendees or employees. >> clerk: okay. and is there a motion on this

item? >> i'd like to make a motion to support. >> i'll second. >> clerk: okay. there's a motion and second to support and approve this item. and i will do a roll-call vote. [roll call vote] >> clerk: the motion carries unanimously. thank you. >> president mccarthy: forgive me, commissioner jacobo. i think i missed you the last round. did i? maybe? >> commissioner jacobo: no. >> president mccarthy: okay. okay. forgive me. all right. okay. madam secretary, next item, please.

>> clerk: our next item, 3, discussion and possible action on the proposed budget of the department of building inspections for fiscal years 2021-2022 and 2022-2023. >> good morning, commissioners. deputy director for the department of building inspection. i will go over our fiscal year proposed fiscal year 2021-22 and 22-23 budget. i'll share my screen.

okay. our first hearing was january 20th. at that hearing, we went over high-level information about the budget and about the budget department-wide level. so what i'll do is first start with the recap from our original january 20th meeting. so let's start there. so the mayor's office projected $352 million deficit in the next two years, due to budgeted declines and covid-19 expenses. the departments have to make reductions. d.b.i. is a special funded department funded by department fees so reductions don't apply to us. however, we're responsible for covering our expenses. we have to make sure we have enough revenues to cover our expenses. so the mayor's budget priorities

is supporting small businesses, recovery, prioritizing equity, implementing homeless and health programming and as well as continuing to respond to covid. and for d.b.i., our budget is based on strategic plan goals and funding priorities. our strategic plan goals have to do with core services of reviewing plans, issuing permit, performing inspections, providing high level of customer services, et cetera. in addition to funding just those core services and core activities, this year's two-year budget will focus on the funding priorities with the mayoral priorities focusing on equity, implementing phase one of the racial equity plan submitted in december. focusing on technology improvements. to increase our online capabilities, improve our forms and reports and website

enhancements. so today's meeting will give a little bit more detailed information. so what you see here, looks like our department organization chart. but it's basically our budget structure. the department has three divisions. so our budget is broke into three, permit services, inspection services, and administration. and these items beneath the divisions are what are called within the budget terms, our sections. you'll see administration has eight sections. inspection services has six. and permit services has four. so when we look at our revenues, you've seen the information before at the department level. this is giving it to you on a division level. when you look at our revenues, the revenue is budgeted by division. inspection services, the total revenues we received proposed in our budget is $28.6 million. about $1.3 million increase from the current year.

and administration about $4.3 million or $600,000 from the current year. and then, in permit services, about $18.2 million or about $1.7 million from the current year. so in our total revenues of course are $51.1 million, up over $3 million from the current year, which was currently at $47.3 million. so here, you get a picture of what the distribution of our revenues. so it's basically services provides 56% of revenues. permit services, about 36% of our revenues. and then, administration about 8% of our revenues. all of our revenues are going up. but i'll go back to this slide. however, of all of our revenues, it's permit services are doing the best. so you could see at the $3.7 million, $1.7 million is

due to permit services. here is because we're doing better than anticipated and budgeted in our plan checking revenues. so expendtures. our expenditures are by division and section. all of the sections are where our expenditures are budgeted. inspection services as i mentioned before, we had these number of sections, and this is how the money is budgeted. and you could see the total expenditures are $88.7 million. let's keep that in mind. once again, the prior slide shows that our revenues are actually at $51 million. so for an expenditure side, once again inspection services is the largest. making up 51% of total expenditures. permit services, $19 million or 22%. and administration at $24.3 million or 27%. and so that is the detail that

was not shared at the first budget before i gave you basically a high level of the department level. so when we go back to the department level, you'll see the $88.7 million that i mentioned earlier. you'll see for the most part our department budget is going down from the current year. so we're going down about $731,000. it would actually go down more than that. because we have not really increased that budget. but these increases are due to salaries. and it's something that was included in our base. so basically, it's covering kolas and in our fringes, too. if you go here, i'll go over. here's a summary of our changes in our budget. so basically, our salary, infringement is $52 million. adds i said, the increase is

cola. retirement health and fringe benefits. we're projected to continue to fill our positions that we'll spend our salary budget. we have made -- i'll go back. we have made some reductions in employee field expenses and travel, in membership fees. although, you can see there's a small portion of our budget. we're making those reductions because based on prior spending as well as during covid we don't think we'll be doing hardly any training. we're keeping a minimum budget in case. same for employee field expenses and memberships. that's based on current year. this is based on what we think we'll be spending on prior actuals. train something one thing that we did not reduce, because as i mentioned earlier, we want to focus on training, racial he can fee training, as well as training for permit techs. so we made a commitment not to

reduce the line item. the other reduction, you see a huge reduction in materials and supplies. a lot of that has to do in 2021 we bumped up our budget a lot to handle covid, getting people set up with laptops and all of those other things. so now we're bringing the budget down. and then, finally, the next one that reduces -- oh, and equipment purchase and automotive, we don't have equipment budgeted this year. and automotive, we are not -- we've been replacing vehicles but we're not going to be replacing vehicles in this current year. in the proposed year. and then, finally, services of the department, i usually refer to them as work orders. can you see that's our second largest expenditure going down by $2.5 million. so at the last meeting, president mccarthy asked questions about work orders.

when you look at a summary of our budget, you see there's very little wiggle room to do a lot with. most of our money is in salaries or the next is work orders. so president mccarthy asked for information concerning the work orders. so this next slide -- apologies if it's hard to read. but there's a lot of work orders. this next slide shows our work order history. and we go back to fiscal year 2015-2016 all the way through the current year of 2021. and also the proposed. as you could see, it's recently as six years ago, our work order budget was $11.7 million. the total amount. it increased up to $30.7 million in 2019. and it's now currently at $25.9 million. it's projected to go down about $23.8 million in our proposed budget due to some reductions in had city attorney and a couple of other work orders.

okay. so i mentioned earlier for revenues, we were at $51 million. as you could see from my expenditures we're at $88 million. that basically means we're going to need to have about $37 million in fund balance to balance the budget. we will continue to monitor our revenues. the revenues that are included now, are based on our july through december projections. we will probably make more projections in february. normally, there's a nine month city-wide in new projections. we hope to see a slight increase. and we can get a little higher than $51 million. at this point, there's no guarantee. so i always want to be able to let everyone know that, yes, we do have fund balance. but it will be gone soon if we

have to continuously spend $37 million a year, $38 million a year to balance our budget. at this time, we don't know where our normal revenues will be. in prior years, we've collected $70 million, $80 million, but those are outlier years. covid rushed our revenue decline. but our revenue has been declining the past five or six years. revenues have been declining, but not at this pace. the reason it hasn't been as obvious is because the past few years, we've been conservative budgeting our revenues, because we've been expecting this to occur, due to a slow-down in the economy and the fee reduction we implemented in october of 2015. so normally whenever you see monthly reports and yearly reports, it always looked good that we're better than budget. so i want to make sure that

everyone is aware that although we've always been better than budget the past three years, our revenues have been steadily declining. and so here, the next steps will be that we will submit the budget to the controller and mayor's office on february 22nd. from march until may, we'll be working with the mayor's office to finalize the budget. we will also be working with a lot of other city departments, because that's what the work orders represent, funding that provides to other city departments. so a lot of work order amounts have not been weibelized that normally happens during this time between march and may. june 1st, the mayor will submit the budget to the board of supervisors. by july 30th, the last day for the board of supervisors to adopt the final budget. august 31st, we have to submit

our budget certification letters. with that, i'm happy to answer questions on anything i've gone over. >> president mccarthy: thank you, taras for your presentation. it's always user-friendly to navigate through with your slide. thank you. that takes a lot of work. appreciate it. with that, i'd like to open up to my fellow commissioners. do we want to take public comment first and see and come back? i think so. can we do that? >> clerk: okay. is there any public comment for this item? if you would like to speak, please press star 3 to raise your hand. >> there is no public comment. >> clerk: okay. thank you. >> president mccarthy: okay. it always amazed me how there's never public comment on the

budget. and i think it's one of the most important parts of our year that we talk about. with that, vice chair moss, do you have questions? >> vice president moss: i don't have questions. >> president mccarthy: commissioner alexander-tut. >> commissioner alexander-tut: thank you for your presentation. again, you have the ability to make complicated things very easy to follow. and understandable. mike mentioned about fee reimbursement for materials, supplies or inspections or work related to covid-19. is any of that fema reimbursable? >> we actually submit our report to the controllers office. and we have been tracking those expenses. related to covid-19. so far, we've not received anything, but we're tracking it. for every quarter over the past year or so, and in fact, i think the next round is actually due

to the controller's office, next week, next tuesday or so. but so we are tracking it. so far we've not received anything. that's been handled on a city-wide level. so we do everything through the controller's office. >> commissioner alexander-tut: thank you. just a follow-up. this is not my world. so i appreciate your patience. when you say you're tracking everything but haven't received reimbursement, does that mean the controller says you're not reimbursable? or is there a hold? might you be reimbursed in the future? or are we uncertain? do we have to budget for it? can you give me guidance? >> sure. we've submitted. no one has not said it's not eligibility. it's just not submitted yet. there are a few items that we said this is not eligible. particular on salaries and those things. it's just that we've soot received information back saying these are reimbursable.

>> >> commissioner alexander-tut: okay. thank you so much. we don't have a time frame when we might get an answer on that? >> i can follow up. because as i said before, we will be submitting our latest quarter on february 16th. so i can follow up. i mean, i can say that is isn't a large portion of our portion for the materials and supplies and those things. and it will be in the current year budget. so basically we're getting reimbursed for these we've done so far. >> commissioner alexander-tut: okay. >> i'll be happy to provide an update on that. actually at our big meeting, i can follow up. >> commissioner alexander-tut: thank you so much. >> president mccarthy: commissioner bito, please. >> commissioner bito: no questions at this moment. thank you. >> president mccarthy: thank you, commissioner. commissioner clinch. >> commissioner clinch: taras,

thank you for the presentation. i have a couple of questions. could you scroll back two, three slides back, which was the expenditures. there you go. that's the one. i was curious -- >> all expenditures? >> commissioner clinch: sorry. work orders. perfect, thanks. i was curious about the department of technology item. that was last year, wasn't it? okay. so that's not going forward. yeah. >> right. >> commissioner clinch: this might be why -- my second question may be partly due to that number there. you had a bullet point, which is interesting, about the fact that our expenditures have gone up from 2.5 times. i'm curious, you may have said this and i didn't hear it. can you explain what that is due to? >> if you're referring to the work order expenditures that

have gone up two and a half times -- >> commissioner clinch: it was 11 million to $22.5 million. >> it's gone up because of the existing work orders from 2015-2016 have increased. you'll see $2.3 million for city attorney and it's now $3.5 million. it's gone up because there's variety of new work orders added to the budget. you'll see the new work orders, permit center, data policy. you'll see the fire department. the fire department, at one point, the work order was $150,000. and now, it's $1.1 million. it's a variety of reasons. it's increasing work orders continuing to increase and newer work orders that have been added to the budget over the past few years. >> commissioner clinch: okay. thank you. >> as well as -- and also, so we

have here, like for instance, the larger work orders are the assessor's office at $1.3 million in 2015-2016. and now, it's at $3.4 million. >> commissioner clinch: i see. that's great. thank you, taras. no other questions. thank you. >> you're welcome. >> president mccarthy: commissioner jacobo, please. >> commissioner jacobo: no questions at this time. >> president mccarthy: thank you. commissioner tam. >> commissioner tam: no further questions at this time. thank you. >> president mccarthy: thank you. taras, thanks again. on the work orders, i think commissioner clinch kind of touched on, and you answered those questions. let me just understand. if i could dig a little bit further on the -- because as i look at our overall department numbers, i have to -- and i think i've said this probably before. i think we're efficient how we spend our money. and i think that's kind of something that never has been

pointed out. when you bundle these numbers together, you think you have this massive, big expenditure. when you look at the day-to-day operations of our department, i believe we're quite efficient as far as departments go. i wonder if you had comments on that. as you are a number person that worked in other departments, would you agree with that? >> yes, i do agree with that. the i think our budget reflects like most city departments, the large percentage -- i have here just a summary of the expenditure details of our budget at a high level. like most departments, most money goes to salary and fringes. but over the past few years, our salaries and fringes have not increased, because we're adding new positions. it's those are things that are many ways out of our control with c.o.l.a.s, health benefits, increases in social security and all those other things.

we try to be frugal. we have to provide a service level, and we have to be able to do this. if you look at non-salary budget, it's very minimal. the next largest expenditure you'll see is $2.5 million. that's for the professional services contract primarily for peer-review. and we provide funding to our c.b.o. partners. so $2.5 million to the city grants program i'm pointing out here. the next place is services to other departments. the department does not include -- does not have a lot of -- i don't know if it's -- plus in its budget. we just don't. we normally budget to what we need. that's part of the reason why we've been able to stay within our budget. and accumulate some savings. and yes, our revenues have been very good in the past. and that's why we've been able

to accumulate savings. we've also been able to accumulate savings due to expenditure savings, too. because when we -- you know, sometimes we do not spend our entire budget. so i would agree that, yes, our budget has been pretty -- we've tried to be pretty frugal with the payors' money, wanting to do what we can to provide services, and also, recognizing it's public funds and being frugal with the money. >> president mccarthy: thank you, taras. i think it's important. where i kind of part company with the budget is the work orders obviously. can we go to there again. i want to dig deeper back to the work orders there. thank you. perfect. and i know commissioner clinch kind of touched on it there. for example, help me understand if, let's say, from 2011 we were at $11 million.

and we're up to $24 million plus and rising here. i don't want to particularly take any particular work order. let's say for example, the one that jumped out at me is the assessor's one at $1.3 million it started off as. can you explain to me why, first of all, why would they come to us and ask us to fund their department for $1.3 million. and help me understand what happens after that where we go to $3.4 million. and procedururally how is that approved? help get my head around it. i'm trying to figure out why they're jumping so much and why it's so different over the year, increasing to that level. is that a fair question, taras, at this point? >> yes, the reason that many of these work orders are increased -- or in this one in particular, is because the number of staff that's being funded by the work order has increased.

so at $1.3 million, there were probably fewer people funded on the work order. versus now, there are more people being funded by the work order. there's higher expenses on the work order. >> president mccarthy: so can you give me some insight what would the work be they have? what would d.b.i. have to fund the assessor's office they would have to increase such a work force like that? give me an example. can you? >> this work order funds staff to do, i guess, assessments after -- because d.b.i., the permits, the inspection and the remodel, that triggers new assessments. so it's my understanding that this work order funds that. >> president mccarthy: okay.

so they -- okay. so all right. okay. so what they're saying from $11 million to over the years we've had a lot more volume over the last 10 or 15 years, right? and we need more people because a lot more building went on, is that correct? yeah, yeah. that would be kind of it, right? >> oh, i'm sorry. is that a question? >> president mccarthy: sorry. i'm thinking out loud here. because a large volume of construction has gone on and finished product, that there would be more people to do the assessment of the properties; is that correct? >> i think so. >> president mccarthy: i think so. >> i just know that probably this increase is because there are more things being charged. and normally, that means more people. >> president mccarthy: were needed, yeah. so you had a decline in market

and have less of this work needed, how does that work with the work orders? do they come to you and say there's not as much building going on in town, so we don't need as many people. does it work that way? how does that work? >> so far we haven't had that conversation. and a lot of times with many of the work orders, like i said before, those don't start until after it's been submitted. i don't have anything to base this on, because 2015-2016 was -- so i don't think i can go back and do a history showing that before it used to be this, and then, it went down during the second one. because i believe 2015-2016 that was the first year the work order was established. >> president mccarthy: yeah. >> it can be something that i can ask concerning this work order. >> president mccarthy: well, i guess, you know, if the reason these work orders went from "x" dollar to a larger dollar is because of volume and workload. and now, we're demonstrating

over the next two or three years, let's say that that workload, that volume is not there, i mean -- i mean, i don't see looking at these numbers, too many work orders going backwards, right? >> no, they aren't. the attorney's work order is reduced. we've already -- this one is i think will be final, because we've already reached out to the city attorney, and they did -- based on current year spending, as you could recall, it went up a little bit because there were a bunch of cases. but now, based on current year's expenses, that went down. >> president mccarthy: yeah. i'm kind of the mind set, this $27 million deficit is just not sustainable. i'm also of the mindset, and i think you kind of touched on this in your presentation, where this gold rush that we had for the last so many years that gave us this almost $17 million in

permits consistently, i don't think we'll see those days any time soon. so i'm kind of coming from the point of view that we could be looking at the new normal as being like $60 million in permits. i'm just talking out loud here. i'm trying to figure out how do we at the department, if we have let's say five years of this, that we on our operational end are quite efficient and lean and mean. but on our work orders are still increasing but there's no justification why they're increasing. i'm trying to get my head on where do we make our adjustments so that that deficit declines? you know. >> yes, i understand. >> president mccarthy: i know you do, yeah. so i'm just kind of talking out loud here on that. at the end of the day, you

already got the information that is given to you so you can put the numbers together, right? we're trying to figure out if this $37 million deficit doesn't decline over the next five or six years, how we as a department can sustain this? so another question would be let's say if the deficit -- if you're upside down $30 million plus for the next five years, how long is our fund there -- >> oh, yeah. [simultaneous speaking.] >> i'm sorry, commissioner. we cannot wait. if we have a $37 million deficit the next five or six years, we're not going to be able to handle that, right. we might have enough money to get us to maybe two years or so. i mean, the good news is that ordinarily, even though this amount is budgeted, and that's -- maybe that's something that i will follow -- i've asked and will continue to follow up.

we normally have savings in our budget not just because we don't spend. there's sometimes savings in our budget because the work orders don't spend either. normally, we'll have some type of savings. now is a good time for everybody to go back and look at that and make sure that's the right side of the work order budget as well as what we've done on the right side of our materials and supplies and those other things, too. but if we had to come up with 37 -- if we literally are at a $37 million deficit, that's not going to last five years. maybe it will last three. if we're lucky. and i'm not sure if it will last three, right? so i don't think -- if we -- and we wouldn't wait until -- and it isn't a good strategy to wait until you're completely out of money. so that's why we are trying to reduce and make it a gradual

reduction. so that it won't be so stark. and that we won't -- oh, yes. we're at $88 million. two years from now, we have to go back down to $60 million. that wouldn't be the best way to go. it isn't easy to absorb a $20 million or $30 million cut over the course of a year. it's better to kind of spread that out. >> president mccarthy: yeah. no. i get it. the shock of that. but i'm just hoping the conversations are happening. i guess that's my hope here. and that, you know, that they're seriously looking at their work orders, and they're not just, you know -- they're going to -- i guess they have to justify this. i mean, but how do they -- yeah, yeah. i mean, i'm kind of probably getting ahead of myself here. but if we have a continuation of this type of road map of finances here for the next couple of years or so, you know,

how these work orders are actually going to be vetted, is very important to me, you know. and justified. and because i don't see where we could do a lot of changes on our side where actually the expenditures are. to me, i look at the work orders as the next area we could save money so that, you know, our rainy day fund isn't depleted faster than we want you know? so that's my comments on that. thank you, taras, for entertaining me on that. >> thank you, commissioner. >> president mccarthy: okay. with that, unless there's further questions from our commissioners, is there? i don't see any. i can't see anybody right now. we could vote, please. if somebody would call the

question to move and approve the budget for here today. do we actually need a vote on this, taras, today? >> yes, we need a vote today. >> president mccarthy: okay. would somebody call the question if there's no more comments from commissioners. >> so moved, alexander-tut. >> >> clerk: there's a motion and second to approve the budget. i'll do a roll-call vote. [roll-call vote]

>> clerk: the motion carries unanimously. okay. and our next item is item 4, adjournment. do we have a motion adjourn? >> moved. >> second. >> clerk: second? >> commissioner alexander-tut: bito, second. >> clerk: thank you. >> we are now adjourned. it's 10:50 a.m.

. >> you're watching coping with covid-19 with chris manners. >> hi. i'm chris manners, and you're watching coping with covid-19. today, my guest is phil ginsburg. he's the director of the san francisco rec and parks, and he's a national rec and park ranger. thank you for being here. >> hi, chris. thank you for having me. >> i've heard you have an exciting new exhibit that features social distancing and is outside, so it's safer. can you tell us a little bit about it? >> the golden gate 50 anniversary wasn't the celebration that we hoped for,

but when life deals you lemons, you hope to make lemonade, and we tried to engage people in the park in different ways. behind me is what we did. it's a public exhibit which has transformed peacock meadows into an enchanted forest of other worldly shapes and lights. it's to close out golden gate park's 150 years and to allow people to have outdoors socially distant fun. >> great. and what are the hours, and when can people go see it, and are there access for

wheelchairs and strollers? >> well, it will run until february 27, and the ways are wheelchair accessible. it will close in time to make the city's curfew. we're not supposed to be gathering. we're not supposed to be celebrating out there, unfortunately. it is a beautiful exhibit and is one that can be seen from the sidewalk or you can wander into the meadow, but we ask that people be really mindful of the circumstances in which we find ourselves. the most important thing for us is to be safe and healthy. do not show up with other households. come and see it, get a little taste of the holidays and leave

so other people can enjoy it. if it's too crowded, comeback because it's going to be around for a while. >> how long does it take to walk around the exhibit? >> well, you could be there for five minutes or 15 minutes or longer if it's not crowded. it's about in an acre of meadow, but it's very visible even from a fully accessible sidewalk. you'll get a sense of it. basically, there are sculpted trees, and it's gorgeous. i got an opportunity to visit it over the weekend. the conservatory of flowers is

there, and then, we have our amazing spreckels temple of music which was recently renovated and lit up in lights. >> i have information that it was created by a local artist. what can you tell us about it? >> well, it's a new concept, but the lights were previously installed in a park in toronto and also in las vegas. the installation has been paid for through private donations to the golden gate park's san francisco 150 campaign. it reflects a culture steeped

in science and history and culture. >> i can't wait to visit it. safely, of course. >> wear masks, distance, sanitize, and don't gather. >> well, thank you for coming on the show today, mr. ginsburg. i appreciate the time you've given us today. >> thank you, and thank you for giving so much attention to golden gate park which has been so wonderful for us during covid and deserves a lot of extra love and attention on its 150 anniversary. >> and that's it for this episode. we'll be back with more information shortly. thank you for watching coping with

>> this meeting will come to order. this is the phobe 10, 2021 budget and finance committee meeting. i'm matt haney, chair of the budget and finance committee. i'm joined by committee members safai and gordon mar. our clerk is ms. wong. i would like to thank colleena mendoza from sfgov tv for broadcasting this meeting. madame clerk, do you have any announcements? >> yes, mr. chair. due to the covid-19 health emergency and to protect board members, [inaudible] and community rooms are closed. however, members will be participating in a meeting remotely. this precaution is taken pursuant to the various local, state and federal orders declaration directives. community members will attend the meeting through video conference and participate in the meeting to the same extent as if they were physically present. public comments will be